Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Expansive Thinking

Brave men and ESPN buddies Bill TPA and The Common Man, the high-quality dudes behind The Platoon Advantage as well as weekend Getting Blankards, recently undertook a daunting but interesting exercise. In their infinite wisdom, they went ahead and added two big league teams for the 2012 season. Not content to simply realign the leagues, the decided to fill the rosters of the new teams. 25 players per team aren't going to come out of thin air so...expansion draft time!

As this is a 'real team', contracts count as does age, I suppose (read the rules here). The Jays have so few albratross contracts so I didn't have much to worry about on that front. I simply tried to protect as much talent as possible.

With no further ado, here is my list with some general commentary following.

Jose Bautista

Ricky Romero

Brandon Morrow

Travis Snider

Brett Lawrie

Yunel Escobar

Kyle Drabek

Marc Rzepcyznski

Adam Lind

Zach Stewart

J.P. Arencibia

Anthony Gose

Rajai Davis

Henderson Alverez

Travis D'Arnaud

With the 21st pick in the first round, the Portland Webfoots select Brett Cecil of the Toronto Blue Jays. And the crowd booed Toronto's inept GM lustily.

Time for round two! My protected players:

Carlos Villanueva

Aaron Hill

Deck McGuire

And with the first selection of the second round, the Portland Webfoots select Eric Thames of the Toronto Blue Jays. And I feel shame. To the third and final round!

Adeiny Hechavarria

Carlos Perez

Jake Marisnick

Finally, with the sixth pick of the third round, the Brooklyn Hipsters select Brad Mills. Whatever.

And that's it. I fear protecting Rajai Davis was a mistake. In light of his play (both recent and historical) and two players I lost, I regret it. Leaving Davis exposed while protecting Cecil and then exposing Hill while protecting Thames probably helps me sleep at night.

On the other hand, I feel like Thames-type players are exactly the kind to move in an expansion draft. Maybe he could be the Webfoots' Al Woods? Sucks to see him go but players like him are not too hard to find. Hopefully, he proves me wrong.

In the end, not bad. Too mid-rotation lefties and a decent-if-defensively challenged power bat lost. The pitching depth makes the first two losses easier to swallow, the outfield competition and Bautista contract make Thames a little easier to take.

What are your thoughts? Always a good exercise to help realize other fans don't value your prospects quite like you do.

Make sure you click over and check out the full rosters, it's good stuff. Awesomely Keith Law compares the rosters and breaks down their merits. Once you finish taking in their entire project, come back here and tear a strip off yours truly in the comments.

14 comments:

i don't think deck or hill had to be protected. deck was drafted too recently (if i'm not mistaken) and hill is likely a free agent. if his option gets picked up i'd imagine his payroll hit for next season would be enough protection from an expansion teams perspective.

I don't know about Deck... He's a polished arm who has potential to contribute to the Majors in a relatively short amount of time (how much value he'll be able to contribute is the real question). I'm surprised a guy like Moises Sierra wasn't picked up, someone with a decent eye, Jose Bautista's right arm and pretty decent pop. Raijai Davis makes very little sense though, from a financial and talent standpoint, but the loss of Thames isn't really heartbreaking. Even if he breaks through that 'fourth outfielder' wall, there will plenty quality corner outfield prospects waiting to supplant him. I think Mills will turn out pretty good, but I digress.

Very surprised that you protected Hill, Villanueva and Davis. Hill's basically replacement level now. Villanueva is striking out around 4 guys per 9 since he became a starter. He's doing well now, but he's not a guy you lose sleep over. Davis is obvious.

I think you're really undervaluing Thames. Guys who hit 308/385/535 in the minors aren't the type of players you want to just give away. I get that he's older, but a lot of that is due to injuries and not him struggling in the minors.

I was a little confused with your comments regarding Thames. Although you say that "players like him are not too hard to find", the stats he has posted in the Pacific League this year make him appear to be better that your average player. Consider his .434 wOBA and 17.2 wRAA in 241 PA. While these stats may represent a limited sample size, his stats last year in AA were not that shabby: .393 wOBA and 29.0 wRAA in 573 PA.

Could you comment further on Thames, and further explain why you think he represents a player who will be only average at the major league level?